


These Wounds, They Will Not Heal

by facelessoldwoman



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: Canon What Canon?, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-21
Updated: 2018-12-02
Packaged: 2019-08-26 21:16:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 1,840
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16688965
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/facelessoldwoman/pseuds/facelessoldwoman
Summary: In reference to a question that canon is not brave enough to answer.





	1. Chapter 1

It was a cold day in January, 1910, and Leta and Theseus were leaving their shared transfiguration class. Theseus had just successfully transfigured an eagle into a trash can, and Leta had transfigured a snake into a slightly larger snake.

“Hey Leta,” Theseus said, “I always meant to ask you, why do you go to school here?”

“Excuse me?”

“I mean, why go to school in Scotland?” Theseus asked, “Your family is from France and you speak French at home. Why didn’t you go to the Beauxbatons Academy?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe we moved here to hide from my mother’s family,” Leta pondered aloud, “They seemed pretty angry when she was abducted and raped.”

“With an unforgivable curse, no less,” Theseus said, “If I ever work for the Ministry I will see to it that one day we actually prosecute offenders who use unforgivable curses. Call me Tough on Crime but I think those curses are bad.”

“You are so sweet!” Leta kissed him on the cheek and he blushed.

“You don’t even have a French accent,” Theseus said. 

“Yeah, that’s kind of weird, right?”

“Don’t ask me, I’m not even born yet!” Professor McGonagall said.

“Well, obviously, professor,” Leta said, “I wouldn’t expect you to work at Hogwarts before you were born just for fan service. Please, go back and teach in a better franchise.”

“Thank you, Lestrange,” Professor McGonagall, “Ten points to Slytherin!”


	2. Erised is Desire Spelled Backwards

Newt Scamander waited on the bridge leading to Hogwarts until Albus Dumbledore walked out, looking for all the world like the only person in the entire castle. This was untrue, of course, inside the castle there were hundreds of students, dozens of teachers, a small army of house elves, caretakers, gamekeepers, and a poltergeist who will never make it into a movie (not even in a franchise dedicated to Fantastic Beasts). But let us pretend that Albus Dumbledore was the sole inhabitant of Hogwarts that day, and that his very conspicuous meeting was of no interest to anyone.

Newt pulled out an amulet that looked like something that would sit on top of an antique lamp.

“You made a blood pact that you wouldn’t fight each other,” Newt said.

“Yes,” Dumbledore said, looking a little too tan for a professor who teaches at a boarding school in Scotland, “I was young, and foolish.”

“But what about that duel?” Newt said,.

“Excuse me?”

“The duel, that big duel between you and Grindelwald,” Newt said, “The reason Grindelwald went into hiding in the first place?”

“How do you know about that?” Dumbledore said.

“It was in all the papers, literally everyone knows about it,” Newt said.

“Clearly I’m still very sensitive about it,” Dumbledore said, “Besides, we were fighting with Aberforth, so it doesn’t count.”

“Oh, that makes sense maybe,” Newt said.

“Aberforth broke my nose, you know,” Dumbledore said.

“Oh,” Newt said, not quite sure what to do with that revelation.

“Punched me right in the face,” Dumbledore chuckled, “Didn’t even use magic.”

“All right.”

“Anyway, would you like some tea?” Dumbledore asked.

“Are we going to invite the other people on the bridge?” Newt asked, pointing to the half dozen Ministry wizards standing 20 feet away. Newt’s brother Theseus coughed awkwardly.

“No,” Dumbledore said.


	3. Orange You Glad

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Percival is the First Name of Dumbledore's Dad, Look it Up

It was another sepia day in 1920’s New York City, and two guards, Harvey and Peter, stood watch in front of Gellert Grindelwald’s silent cell. It was a much less exciting post now that Grindelwald had his tongue removed. They could tell him knock-knock jokes all day long and Grindelwald would never reply. In the end cutting someone’s tongue out doesn’t really matter anyway, because no one says spells anymore, you just point your wand at things and magic happens.

Harvey let out a frustrated sigh, “Whatever happened to that Graves guy?”

“Graves?” Peter asked, “You mean Percival Graves?”

“Yeah, the sexy one,” Harvey said.

“Nothing happened to him, he was Grindelwald in disguise the whole time,” Peter said.

“Not the WHOLE time, surely, wasn’t he a real person once?” Harvey asked.

“Maybe Grindelwald made him up,” Peter said.

“Graves had to be a real person,” Harvey said, “He had a high ranking job in the American Ministry of Magic.”

“The American Ministry of Magic?” she said, “What are you talking about, this is the Magical Congress of the United States of America - We have a President, remember?”

“I thought we changed it,” Harvey said.

“Changed it? To the American Ministry of Magic?” Peter said, “Why on earth would we do that?”

“We must have changed it to appeal to an international audience,” he said, “Maybe MACUSA didn’t test well.”

“International audience?” Peter said, “You’re getting too meta, even for self-aware fan fiction.”

“The location title card at the beginning of the movie said ‘The American Ministry of Magic’” Harvey said, “So either they forgot that it’s called the MACUSA or they changed their minds and decided that MACUSA is a dumb name.”

“Hey there, bud, it’s okay,” Peter said, “I’m sure it was just a mistake.”

“I liked being called the MACUSA,” Harvey said, “It’s the one cool thing we had.”

“Wanna talk about Graves again?” Peter asked.

“Sure,” Harvey said, “Do you think he’s dead?”

“What?”

“Like, did Grindelwald kill Graves, or did he keep Graves alive so he could keep making the Polyjuice Potion.”

“Are those the only two options?” Peter asked.

“Grindelwald could have obliviated Graves and sent him to live in a sanitarium,” Harvey said.

“Oh, Jesus.”

“Or Grindelwald could killed Graves and transfigured the body, he could be anywhere at any time and we’d never know,” Harvey said.

“Who hurt you, Harvey,” Peter said, “Why are you like this?”

“I’m just saying, it merits an investigation.”

“Yeah, we should definitely start looking for people when they go missing.”

“Hey Peter?”

“Yeah?”

“Magic is scary.”

“Yeah.”


	4. Don't Ask Questions

It was another inky black night in 1920’s New York City, but tonight was a special night for Peter and Harvey because their long-term inmate, Gellert Grindelwald, was going across the sea to England. It wasn’t really explained why. I guess he committed more crimes in England than he did in America, although he definitely committed enough crimes in America to go in that pool of death room from the first movie. MACUSA must have a good extradition policy or whatever.

Honestly, who cares.

“Hm,” Harvey said.

“What?” Peter said.

“Oh, nothing.”

“Ugh,” Peter said, “Just say it.”

“Do you think that we can all see the thestrals because we fought in the war?” Harvey asked.

“Excuse me?”

There was a very dramatic carriage waiting on the top of the tower to pick up Graves, dammit, I mean Grindelwald, and instead of horses they were using thestrals. The thestrals stomped noisily. 

“The thestrals,” Harvey said, “You can only see them if you’ve witnessed death. It’s kind of weird that we can all see them. I figured maybe we saw death during the war.”

“Are we veterans?” Peter asked, “Would wizards adhere to the draft? Would we would do our civic duty or would we hide away like we always do? Wouldn’t we want to help, wouldn’t we have a responsibility to help?”

“Look,” Harvey said, “A World War 1 movie with wizards would have been pretty awesome but clearly we’re not doing that.”

“Yeah,” Peter said, “And we’re not going to talk about the stock market crash, either, huh?”

“You mean the devastating economic event that clearly defines this era in history?” Harvey said, “The event that would have been building for years at this point?”

“Yeah,” Peter said, “We’re just going to ignore that. Effectively using your setting is hard.”

“We could have witnessed death from the Spanish Flu,” Harvey said.

“What?”

“Spanish flu,” Harvey said, “Ten times more Americans died from the Spanish Flu than from fighting in World War 1, and most of that was at home, not abroad.”

“Jesus.”

“I’m just saying,” Harvey said, “f you survived a plague you probably aren’t a stranger to death. We’d be able to see thestrals after that.”

“It doesn’t really make sense that we would be cool with a foreign government picking up a political prisoner using carriage driven by a bunch of magical beasts,” Peter said, “Not being cool with magical beasts was kind of our thing in the last movie.”

“Well, apparently we were cool with letting Grindelwald keeping a magical pet in prison so we must’ve become more relaxed about it.”

“Yeah, they don’t even let you have pets in normal prison.”

“Weird right?”

“Yeah.”


	5. Thank You For Being Here Today

Theseus looked at each of his men. He was nervous, but ready for the challenge of leadership: if he was going into Hell these were the people he would want by his side, warriors all.

“Look, I know we’re on orders to break up this rally and arrest his followers but that’s not really something we’re allowed to do,” Theseus said, “In fact, I am not sure how we could have any jurisdiction here. This is France.”

“Yeah,” an auror named Jimmy said, “Don’t the French have aurors? Why are we here?”

“Because we’re chasing Grindelwald, he’s a baddie,” Theseus said.

“I bet he committed crimes in loads of countries,” Jimmy said, “When did we decide that we were going to be the International Grindelwald Police?”

“It’s important that we stop him,” Theseus said.

“But you didn’t tell us to arrest him,” Jimmy said, “Are we here for Grindelwald or are we here to break up a rally?”

“We’re not going to do any of that, we’re just going to … keep the peace, or something,” Theseus said, “God dammit, now even I don’t know what we’re supposed to be doing here.”

“Are we here to listen to Grindelwald’s speech?” Jimmy said.

“No!” Theseus said.

“We’re protesting, then,” Jimmy said.

“No!” Theseus said, “We’re going to make sure nothing bad happens!”

“So we’re protecting his followers,” Jimmy said.

“No, we’re keeping the peace!” Theseus said.

“But literally no one else is here,” Jimmy said, “We’re in a graveyard at night time and the only people who are showing up to this show are into it. Are we making sure that they don’t start a riot or something?”

“We have no reason to believe that anyone here is violent,” Theseus said, “Nobody do anything rash!”

“Like what?” Jimmy asked.

“Number one, don’t escalate the situation,” Theseus said, “If you think someone is going to attack you, disarm them. I don’t care if you have to use a tickling charm, we can’t let any civilians get hurt.”

“Calm down, Theseus,” Jimmy said, “We’re professional aurors, it’s not like we just go around shouting avada kedavra at anyone who looks at us funny.”

“You better not,” Theseus said, not convinced, “I really hate unforgivable curses.”

“We won’t use the killing curse, I promise,” Jimmy said, “Expelliarmus is literally the first defensive spell we teach wizard babies I think we can manage it.”

"Okay, well," Theseus opened the door to the Grindelwald rally and beckoned for his men to follow, "Have fun storming the castle!"


End file.
